Abstract:
On time. In time. Late. These are terms that the average person uses to describe his or her relation to the concept of time. One typically views time as a method by which to organize a series of events. However, time exists in an unacknowledged, yet essential, way. Time exists as an always - present present. Time is not past or future, at least not essentially, as we tend to think. Subjectively, time does exist as past or future, accessed through memory. However, even recalling a memory brings that event, that has or will occur, to the present, existing in a new way. Most people will accept that the past is accounted for through memory but may question the connection between ‘future’ and ‘memory.’ Maurice Merleau - Ponty describes this relationship as the ‘projection of these memories ahead of us.’ So, it is through a memory that one can anticipate a future event, subjectively. When speaking of time essentially, however, Merleau - Ponty proposes not a ‘succession of instances of now,’ but instead a present that always is and a ‘future and past [that] are in a kind of eternal state of pre - existence and survival.’ It is this notion of essential time that is the focus of this project. Most people tend to think of time merely in terms of subjectivity, which undermines ‘things’ in their very existence. How can a building be valued historically (subjectively of course, for essentially there is no past, just present) if one cannot see the value of that building as existing in the present?
